Meanwhile back in Labrador, four billion years ago...

Meanwhile back in Labrador, four billion years ago amazing life was already underway... 

New Discovery Points to Life on Earth Nearly 4 Billion Years Ago   

 

 The Eoarchean Era
 is when the Earth had a firm crust for the first time.

Gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger observed by three detectors in a landmark collaboration

The three-detector observation was made on August 14, 2017 at 10:30:43 UTC. The two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Virgo detector, located near Pisa, Italy, detected a transient gravitational-wave signal produced by the collision of two stellar mass black holes:

Gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger observed by LIGO and Virgo 

 

A paper about the event, known as GW170814, has been accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters and this article features data from all three of the gravitational wave detectors involved:

Explanatory Article by ScienceAlert:

IT'S OFFICIAL: Gravitational Waves Were Just Detected With The Greatest Precision Ever

Update on Gravitational Wave Science 

from the LIGO-Virgo Scientific Collaborations

The three observatories involved:

The two LIGO interferometers are located in fairly isolated areas of Washington (LIGO Hanford) and Louisiana (LIGO Livingston), and separated by 3,002 km (1,865 miles).

VIRGO is a giant laser interferometer operated in Cascina, near Pisa on the site of the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO), by an international collaboration of scientists from France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Hungary.

LIGO Livingston 

 in Louisiana

LIGO Handford

 in Washington state

 

 Virgo

near Pisa, Italy

 How does the VIRGO laser interferometer work?  

Here is an explanatory video:

Gravitational Waves: A New Era of Astronomy Begins

Producing Energy From Evaporating Water

The fascinating potential for using natural evaporation of water to produce power...

Potential for natural evaporation as a reliable renewable energy resource

Science Daily Article Helps Explain:

Energy harvested from evaporation could power much of US

Short video explanation:  

Capturing clean energy from evaporating water:  

 More detailed video:

Renewable Energy from Evaporating Water:

Restoring Consciousness Even After Many Years in a Vegetative State

A 35-year-old man who had been in a vegetative state for 15 years after a car accident has shown signs of consciousness after neurosurgeons implanted a vagus nerve stimulator into his chest...

After 15 years in a vegetative state, 

nerve stimulation restores consciousness 

Original Research Article:
Restoring consciousness with vagus nerve stimulation 

Related Article in Medical News Today:
Consciousness 'restored' using nerve stimulation 

Mayo Clinic Info Page: Vagus nerve stimulation

How to Stimulate Your Vagus Nerve for Better Mental Health 

 

Great Horned Frogs! Beelzebufo was One Tough Amphibian

Researchers are astounded by the bite force exerted by the South American Horned Frog and believe this has implications for giant prehistoric frogs like Beelzebufo...

By Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com) (Own work)

Bite force in the horned frog (Ceratophrys cranwelli) 

with implications for extinct giant frogs

Prehistoric News : Devil Frog had Spikes and Armor

And they certainly were not toothless: 

Histological characterization of denticulate palatal plates 

in an Early Permian dissorophoid

 

World's 10 Weirdest Prehistoric Animals

Zika's Cancer Fighting Potential

Fighting cancer through the use of viruses is not a new idea, but now it appears the the dreaded Zika has potential as a cancer fighter...

Zika virus has oncolytic activity against glioblastoma stem cells

  By CDC/ Cynthia Goldsmith - http://phil.cdc.gov/phil/details.asp?pid=20541, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47622558

Further Research into using Zika as Cancer fighter...

Harnessing the power of the Zika virus – Dr Harry Bulstrode 

Testing Zika Against Brain Tumors

An engineered virus, injected into the blood, can selectively target cancer cells throughout the body in what researchers have labelled a medical first...

Intravenous delivery of a multi-mechanistic cancer-targeted oncolytic poxvirus in humans

Cold sore virus could treat skin cancer, say scientists

 

In Addition to Monstrous Moonshine, There are 23 Other Moonshines!

Researchers are on the trail of a mysterious connection between number theory, algebra and string theory...

Mathematicians Chase Moonshine’s Shadow

The Story of Moonshine, Part I: 

Symmetry, Number theory, and the Monster 

Symmetry, Algebra and the Monster